


persistence

by EquesArtis



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: ChellDOS, F/F, Post-Portal 2, baby steps, it's been a while since i played the games but i'm trying, not exactly explicitly romantic but, this is how i picture things starting with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 15:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EquesArtis/pseuds/EquesArtis
Summary: It's been a month since GLaDOS emptied the test chambers of her one and only subject, and she'd say she's doing pretty good. Two new testing bots, and a whole slew of possible facilities for them to run through. Right up until a surprise visit comes in from someone she was fairly certain she'd never see again. Just a quick one-shot!





	persistence

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a LONG time since i played portal but i'm going through the first game rn and felt. a need.

The chamber was empty save for the gentle humming of processing power, and the occasional whir of rotary motors straining  _ long _ past their last due date for maintenance as GLaDOS gently moved around the space. She didn’t need to swivel at all - she was wirelessly tapped into every camera in the facility, and all it took to switch between them was a digital thought - a small spark of circuitry that functioned in less than a millisecond; but something inside of her liked the feeling of being active.

The two testing bots she had managed to reactivate were making excellent progress. They had become a main focus of hers over the last month. Once she had undone the damage that that pompous little core had caused to the facility, it was back to testing. Always testing now. Always focusing every byte of data her central processor would allow, always keeping herself occupied. She had lost a good amount of time, and a good amount of data, all thanks to. Her.

There was a small pulse in the back of her electronic mind, a signal telling her that the pair of bots had made it to the next chamber. Another flicker of thought and she allowed her voice to crackle through the speakers laid throughout the facility.

“Oh. Good. If my praise processors were online, I would even say ‘excellent.’ But they’re not. So I won’t. Continue to the next chamber.”

Her unit sagged slightly. She really hadn’t been on her peak performance today, even if she still was able to comment on the testing without fail, within a .5 second grace window per event. Something was dragging her focus away, and no matter how much she poked around inside her digital head, she still couldn’t find what process could be deemed so important. Peculiar.

Another ping went off in her senses, but not from the testing chamber. It was… close. Far closer than any active units that she knew of. She whipped her head around, focusing her optics on whatever she could find moving in the circular room she was suspended in. She cursed internally, an unfortunate trait that she had recently picked up on and had found uncomfortably enjoyable to indulge.

Nothing moved in the chamber for a moment. Then two moments. And then… a footstep. From behind her.

She whipped around again, motors screaming at the hurried motion, screams which she ignored as she brought herself to face… her.

She thought maybe it was something else. A hallucination. A memory buried in her core that had activated somehow, playing in real time for her visual sensors and messing with her head. GLaDOS felt a very real, deep fear for a moment, that maybe it was finally time; maybe she was malfunctioning.

But it was no memory. It was real, and that scared her all the more, even if just for a second.

She was standing there, in the same jumpsuit every test subject was fitted with, still rolled around her waist, still showing a white Aperture undershirt that showed bared, weathered, muscled arms that betrayed a long life of rigorous testing. The same dark hair, although it was now pulled into a tight bun, only a few strands loose enough to billow in front of her face.

GLaDOS saw the same focused eyes peering out of a tan face. The same focus she had seen when this human had tried - and succeeded to kill her. The same eyes she had seen, wide open with disbelief, as she sent her back to the surface, desperate to just kick her out and be done with her.

The same subject who had picked her up off the ground when she was a supercomputer trapped in a piece of produce, and carried her all the way back to her rightful body. The same person who had  _ saved her. _

She didn’t care for seeing her in the slightest.

“I see you’re back for more testing.” She let out every drop of malice she could find buried inside of her, soaking each word in the mixture, and silently disappointed when the words came out flat. “I don’t have time to talk to you, I’m afraid. Goodbye.”

She activated a drop underneath the woman, a pit forming instantly and causing her to fall silently. She didn’t even scream, to her credit. The opening shut itself once more, and GLaDOS assumed that would be the last of her; maybe she would monitor her in a year. Or two years. There wasn’t any rush, after all.

It only ended up being a couple of hours, as it turned out. There was a scrambling noise just as the AI was sending the orange and blue bots to their next test, causing her to turn around, bringing her optics-to-face with the human again; sweaty, panting, but seemingly no worse for wear.

“You truly are persistent today, aren’t you.” She attempted to open another hatch, but the woman was prepared this time, dodging out of the way as it opened beneath her, and again to avoid the second attempt. All the while, she continued to watch GLaDOS with an intense focus, albeit different from that day in the Central Chamber all that time ago.

After she stepped away from a third hatch, she finally gave up. She was ready in the event that this human tried to kill her. Again. It wouldn’t hurt to at least find out what she was even doing back down here.

“What were you expecting when you came back down here? A warm welcome?” Her tuned, electronic voice echoed around the chamber harshly, causing the woman to flinch  _ ever so _ slightly. “You and I both know we are past that point.”

She finally responded. GLaDOS had communicated with her enough to know the essential bits and pieces of sign language now, so it wasn’t too hard to break down the hand gestures she made in retort.

_ Didn’t expect a welcome this time. Just came to see you. _

“This time? We are not an open house. You cannot just come in and out of Aperture as you please.” The core unit was silent a moment longer before pushing further. “Why are you here? Since apparently you are not happy just testing in the facilities like a good subject.”

_ Like I said. I’m here to see You.  _ She exaggerated the ‘you,’ as if trying to make a point, which GLaDOS noted as peculiar.

“There’s nothing to see. You heard me back then. You’ve won. I’m done with the game.”

_ No game. Not here to gloat. Just to see friends. _

Now  _ this _ really was peculiar.

“Oh,  _ friends.  _ If you want to talk to Caroline, I’m sorry. But she is gone. I deleted her.” And she  _ had. _

Or she  _ thought  _ she had, at the very least. Although failure would explain why she had been feeling so distracted lately.

The woman shook her head again.

_ Not Caroline. Just you. _

GLaDOS’s body strained to bring herself as close to this woman as she could manage, metal groaning as she reached the limits of her joints.

“I tried to kill you. Multiple times. It’s only fair, considering you  _ did  _ kill me, but why would you want to see me, Chell?” The light in the center of her body flared for a moment as her whole system froze. It slipped out. Nothing  _ ever  _ slipped out, not from the Central Core. She was programmed not to. But now she was  _ defective,  _ it would seem.

She started to pull back, only to be stopped by a hand placed calmly on the smooth, perfectly white surface of her exterior. She focused her optics on the woman, who seemed to be struggling to find the words she was trying to express, before settling on something.

_ In the tests. You were different. Not just through Caroline.  _ You  _ were different. And I want to know more. About this difference. About you. _

GLaDOS watched Chell intently, trying to get a read of her face. She saw determination, clearly; something she thought would never leave this woman, no matter what was thrown at her. She saw fear, just slightly dancing behind her eyes. And she saw hope. Patience.

Care.

The core hesitated a moment, before pulling back from her hand. Chell seemed disappointed for a moment, before she heard her voice reverberating around the chamber.

“Fine. Find a seat somewhere. If I can’t make you leave, you might as well make yourself comfortable.” A smile broke across Chell’s face as she slid a small pack off of her back, pulling out a tightly bound blanket that she laid on a part of the chamber’s floor, sitting cross legged on it and watching GLaDOS intently.

The AI briefly focused on Orange and Blue. They were a few chambers ahead now, and hadn’t stopped due to her absence from their intercoms. They could stand to go a little longer without her.

This would be an interesting test to be sure. She swiveled back around to face Chell, waiting patiently in front of her.

“Alright. Where do we start?”


End file.
